Reading With Voice

Today we had 8th graders from a Treasure Mountain International Middle School speech class come into our classroom to read with the kids. In their speech class, they were working on reading with voice. This was a great way for them to practice. The students loved it, too! Some of the 2nd graders even had the opportunity to read to the 8th graders. What a nice way to start the day.

Our Tree

Part of our Science CORE is learning about the changes that trees and animals go through.  I decided to have our class observe a tree throughout the entire school year, watching the changes that it goes through during the seasons.  On Thursday, we did our first observation.








 

We're Off and Running

Wow, how time flies!  I can't believe we have already been in school for 3 weeks.  The children have been working really hard on establishing routines and procedures in our classroom and around school.  McPolin has adopted the acronym R.O.C.K., which stands for Respect, Organization, Cooperation, and Kindness.  The students even came up with their own R.O.C.K. rules for our classroom.

Respect

  Raise your hand to speak

  Keep your hands to yourself

  Follow directions

Organization

  Keep a clean classroom

Cooperation

  Play nicely together

Kindness

  Treat others the way you want to be treated  

Homework:  A homework folder will be sent home every Monday night, starting September 22nd.  Each week, in their homework folder, the students will bring home a reading log.  This is a documentation of their reading minutes each night (at least 20 minutes per night).  There will also be math assignments.  Each math assignment will be labeled with the day to work on that particular sheet, depending on when we do the lesson in class.  This will be clearly marked at the top of the papers.  Homework folders should be returned to me by Friday.  A running total of reading minutes will be recorded.

Daily Schedule:  Our mornings start off at 8:10 a.m. with Daily Oral Language (D.O.L.). We then move into our literacy block until 10:15 a.m.  From 9:15-10:15 the "step in" model will occur.  A reading specialist and an ESL specialist will come into our room and work with groups of students.  I will also be doing guided reading groups during that time.  During this hour, there will be three 20-minute rotations/centers.  From 10:15-10:30 we have morning recess.  Math takes place from 10:30-11:35.  Our lunch/recess time is from 11:40-12:20.  We have specialists Monday-Thursday from 12:30-1:15 and, Tuesday-Thursday, from 1:20-2:05. Please see our specialists schedule on the right.  Science and Social Studies will take place at the end of the day.